Showing? Perhaps not......

OK, so we decided to go to a show. With the horses. As it was at the only venue we can usefully hack to, Tumpy green. Mentioned to Loraine that Ali was doing a showing class with Sky, yes that's right, Sky, the one that has looked like this all winter......

...and she said she could show us a few tricks. So the other day, we brought Sky in and Loraine showed us how to get the dirt out without having to wash her, and how to strap her and even brush the grease out using meths! Then she got the clippers out and trimmed her feathers and after that, she looked a bit different.....

So this morning off we went to the show. Lots of faffing, plaiting, polishing, cursing and stressing (by my daughter) later, we were ready to go. I got straight into the dressage arena as the people due to go before us weren't there. I thought the test went quite well, I didn't forget it for a start, and G seemed his usual self, but it turned out we only got 55% and there was a lot of "needs more impulsion" on the score sheet. Ah well, guess he can't cover the ground like the big shiny long-legged horses can........

 

Then on an impulse (because the jumps were tiny) we did the clear round jumping and got a rosette!

 

Ali did that too (her rosette was pink, much to her disgust), then it was off to Sky's showing class. And this is where it went a bit wrong......Sky was OK at first when they were all going round the ring together....

...but when it came to the waiting around whilst everyone does their individual show bit, I could see her fidgeting about. Clearly she didn't see why she should stand and do nothing when there was all that nice grass just waiting to be eaten. And she was getting more and more annoyed that she wasn't allowed any. The fidgeting turned into foot stamping, then a little buck and finally, she actually threw her toys out of the pram and reared, so poor Ali made an unscheduled dismount. They left the ring sharpish before they got chucked out!! Perhaps showing isn't for her, then. I do hope not, all the cleaning and poncing about is far too much like hard work.......

 

Ali seemed none the  worse for wear after her tumble and insisted on doing her 2' jumping class. Didn't want Sky thinking she could chuck her off and do no more work, for a start. There was a bit of an argument at the beginning of the round but Ali insisted and she went clear in the first round but had 2 down in the jump off.

But then Ali's ankle started hurting so I took her to the medic on duty (yes, they have those here!) and he strapped it up for her. So she had to get a lift back, I rode G and led Sky home and now we're back I'm making Ali a cake :-)

G of course, was perfectly behaved all day. Love that big old horsie......

Why do I do it?

We went to another SJ competition yesterday. The usual sort of thing, had to be up at the stables for 6am (!) to just stand a round for half an hour whilst people faffed about kissing each other, smoking and generally not getting the horses loaded and off in a timely fashion. Such is French riding club life......

Stupid o'clock in the morning.....

Anyway we eventually set off in the dark following two trailers full of ponies. Had to have some loud rock music on in the car to keep me awake. Not much else on the roads which was just as well seeing as we had to keep stopping to apparently deal with something wrong with one of the trailers and thus blocking the road.....then we turned off the main road onto little roads through the vines. Aha, I thought, they know a short cut.....but no, after 20 minutes of driving around in circles it appeared that we were merely lost. Eventually we made it back to the main road and tried a different route and finally arrived at the stables where after a teeth-rattling drive down a track we had to park in the traditional muddy field.

Then there was a mad dash to get a child and pony ready for the first class as we'd missed the course walk at 7.30 (when it was still pretty much dark) due to our scenic tour of the local goat tracks prior to arrival. Then after a scramble to get the rest of them sorted and on board, there was the equally traditional wait - hours of standing around whilst subsequent classes totally failed to start on time.

As a counterpoint to all this frantic inactivity was the local chasse banging away in the background. Not sure what they were after but presumably they were hunting it with machine guns since a lot of the time it sounded like there was a firework display going off somewhere in the woods. This didn't go down to well with many of the equines, who started an impressive display of formation snorting, eye bulging and in some cases, bogging off......

 

The it was over to the collecting ring to watch the usual uncontrolled galloping about, near collisions and unscheduled dismounts. One poor girl managed to get chucked off a total of five times before getting anywhere near the actual competition arena. Think I'd have realised my horse was trying to tell me something long before reaching such an impressive tally of falls. Our kids managed to avoid the action and I was pleased to see the Ginger One taking it in her stride...

Unfortunately a couple of the other kids from the club got eliminated and had falls so there were the inevitable tears and after listening to them being consoled by various parents and the instructor to no effect I lost patience with it and ended up doing The Speech: "When I was your age I didn't even have my own pony so think yourselves lucky you're even here to get the chance to balls it up and fall off!" etc.

Ali did a couple of reasonable rounds on Nahiade, she had one pole down in the Club 3 as she lost concentration and the beastie rushed at it and pretty much the same thing happened in the 80cm class which resulted in 2 down. They looked pretty good together though :-)

Between rounds we discovered a nice TREC course in the woods so sneaked off to see what Nahiade would make of it....

Then it was back to standing around, trying to drink thé pas bon which is all you ever get at these things and eating cold anaemic frites. Still, there was always the ongoing spectacle of people hitting the deck to give us something to watch, and the usual unpleasant handling of frequently stressed equines by over-horsed children wearing spurs and carrying big sticks. And not just the kids, one bloke treated us to such an abysmal display of terrible riding and totally unsympathetic handling of his horse that I had to suppress the urge to go over and kick him in the bollocks. Could be the last show I attend in this country for a while and I don't think I'll miss it.....
Still, gets you out of the house, eh?

Kinna likes to keep us on our toes.....

Yesterday, Ali and Kinna parted company for the first time. Once again it was all about the grass.....Ali had gone ahead of us and asked her to canter back so she decided halfway along to stop for a snack. She did a few all four feet off the ground bounces, I caught the start of it on camera:

then the saddle which wasn't girthed up tightly started slipping down her neck so Ali didn't really have a chance.......

Kinns immediately started stuffing her face, totally not bothered by the saddle round her ears, so Ali had to take it all off and resaddle her. We continued our ride, we were going to the vet's to get their annual jabs done without having to pay the call out fee.

They were fine with this, the vet's is on a big roundabout on the main Bordeaux - Bergerac road but the horses are well used to heavy traffic. The locals are somewhat less used to seeing horses apparently, as a fair amount of slowing down and rubbernecking went on, good job there wasn't a pile up! Then the vet came out with the microchip reader, as we needed to get the girls' details verified before they can go on the list to do Club competitions (paperwork, as ever, has to be done if you want to do anything at all in this country). Kinna took one look at that and backed away eyes rolling and snorting. She doesn't like the vet, ever since she was microchipped as a baby, as they don't use a local anaesthetic here and it hurt. In the end I had to read her chip, and the vet had to sneak up on her with the jab whilst I distracted her with an apple......

Gandalf meanwhile had dozed off in the sun and Sky was trying to eat the shrubbery. Left them with Ali whilst I went to pay the (still overinflated) bill and the girls were trying to edge her towards the grass on the edge of the car park.....

But then we got back on to ride home, and Kinns was good as gold all the way back. Maybe she'd had enough fun for one day....  ;-)

The Saga of Seraphina

Well, today was interesting......

Got a phone call before 9am, immediately thought 'the bloody horses are out again' but it wasn't mine, it was Seraphina!! Started rushing the troops out the door to get straight down there, but then got another call to say she'd been found. Interestingly, the pony belonging to the neighbours had also got loose during the night, so did something scare them, like a sanglier?

Anyway, made our leisurely way down to Rochelle's. Had a fantastic Mexican lunch. Got Seraphina in, groomed her, tacked her up, took her out to the round pen for some free lungeing. She was as good as gold, despite the Small Naughty One being noisy and trying to get under her feet all the time.

 So Ali hopped on, all OK, until I went to adjust the stirrups. Was it because Ali shifted her weight to one side, or did I inadvertently knock her with the stirrup? Whatever it was, she took off, initially at a trot but then she got faster as the weight on her back shifted more to one side. Then Ali screamed, which made it a whole lot worse. By the time I got to her to stop her (and bashed my face on her side, people keep asking me if I've been in a fight!), Ali was on the deck, but she was luckily just shaken, not really hurt.

So that's youngsters for you.....after that, I took her for a walk in the woods in hand, no probs. Took her into the paddock and tried her with a cooler rug, no problems. She didn't like the rustly winter rug though, we eventually got it on her back all folded up after she'd run away from it a few times but when she was OK with that we called it a day.

She's still a sweetheart. We're hoping to go down the next time the trainer comes so Ali can see how she goes....

Oh, and we measured her, she's only 13.2hh. She's got some growing to do if she's going to get as big as mum and dad!